Video is increasingly being used as a media for communication. Transmission of video media often involves traversal across one or more wireless links. Certain wireless links support only a half-duplex mode of communication, wherein only one side of the communication link can transmit at any given time.
The visual quality of a video stream that is transmitted over a half-duplex wireless link can become degraded if both sides of the link attempt to transmit data simultaneously. In such instances, it is often the case that one or more full or partial video frames are lost. Devices that display the video stream may be unable to present those non-received or partially-received video frames, thus causing stutter in the video stream from the perspective of a viewing user. Additionally, due to dependencies in the video encoding, the quality of individual video frames that are received and presented by the receiving device may be degraded if any of those received frames reference any of the non-received or partially-received video frames. Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods for triggering the transmission of recovery video frames to a video-receiving device over a half-duplex air interface (i.e., when the video traverses one or more half-duplex wireless links).
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.